让语言智能体可撤销过时记忆,避免错误信息污染决策。
TEPA: Revoking Stale Memories for Conflict-Robust Language Agents

- 设计可撤销的记忆机制,用键值对记录证据并自动失效冲突条目。
- 在50次实验中,新方法召回率高达0.950,远超传统追加和最后写入策略。
- 适合需要动态更新知识、可审计历史的长期任务型智能体使用。
长期记忆使语言智能体能够复用过往事实、偏好和任务经验。但持久性也带来核心的可证伪性问题:当世界变化后,过时记忆仍可能被调用并污染提示。我们将其称为记忆污染——由已被新证据推翻的活跃记忆引起的性能下降。本文提出TEPA,一种可撤销的证据-记忆机制,将有效性作为记忆的显式状态。TEPA将观察表示为带键的先例,并在新证据与同一键的旧记录冲突时主动撤销该条目,允许检索使用最新证据,同时保留已撤销历史用于审计。在受控隐式模式漂移、真实文件驱动执行漂移及偏好更新流中,撤销机制有效防止了过时活跃记忆在反转后仍保留在检索集内。在50个种子的受控漂移实验中,追加式与最后写入优先记忆的性能分别降至0.210,无记忆基线为0.309,而TEPA达到0.950;真实文件执行下结果一致(追加式0.203,无记忆0.298,TEPA 0.950)。在干净的MemoryAgentBench SH-6k上,TEPA表现媲美强效的最后写入缓存,证实当前键替换是单跳事实整合的关键操作。多跳与长上下文边界测试揭示了超越事实级有效性追踪的检索链与上下文选择瓶颈。综合结果确立生命周期撤销作为需可证伪、可审计并后续重用演化知识的智能体的核心记忆操作。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Long-term memory enables language agents to reuse past facts, preferences, and task experience. Persistence also creates a central falsifiability problem: when the world changes, stale memories can remain retrievable and pollute the prompt. We characterize this failure mode as memory pollution: degradation caused by active memories that newer conflicting evidence has superseded. We introduce TEPA, a revocable evidence-memory mechanism that makes validity an explicit state of memory. TEPA represents observations as keyed precedents and revokes active precedents when fresh evidence contradicts them under the same key, allowing retrieval to draw from current evidence while preserving revoked history for audit. Across controlled hidden-regime drift, real file-backed executable drift, and preference-update streams, revocation prevents stale active memory from remaining in the retrieval set after reversal. In controlled drift over 50 seeds, append-only and last-write-wins memory fell below no memory during full reversal (append-only and last-write-wins both 0.210, no memory 0.309, TEPA 0.950), and the same pattern reproduced under real file execution (append-only 0.203, no memory 0.298, TEPA 0.950). On clean MemoryAgentBench SH-6k, TEPA matches a strong last-write-wins cache, confirming that current-key replacement is the decisive operation for single-hop fact consolidation. Boundary tests on multi-hop and very long-context MemoryAgentBench settings expose retrieval-chain and context-selection bottlenecks beyond fact-level validity tracking. Together, these results establish lifecycle revocation as a core memory operation for agents that must falsify, audit, and later re-promote evolving knowledge.
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